


Daydream Believer

by TheTartWitch



Series: You may say I'm a dreamer (but I'm not the only one) [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Loki, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Guilt, Illusions, Loving Thor, M/M, Past Torture, Psychological Torture, Trance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki and Thor are in a happy, loving relationship, true, but lately Loki's been feeling as though Thor is torn: between the Avengers and Loki himself. Loki is ready to accept any decision Thor makes, but is it all in his head? A new villain is in town, ready to wreak havoc, and then there are the dreams Loki's been having...<br/>Sequel to Waking Up. Reading that first will help this to make sense of things easier. ^^;</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I love to write Loki. He's got so many delicious insecurities that I have and it always makes me feel better to have him angst over them and then give him a happy ending. ^^

Loki's sure Thor knows about the nightmares that wake him up at night gasping for breath or tugging on his braid to check the length. It'd be kind of hard to miss them, seeing as he and Thor share the same sleeping quarters in the Tower now. 

Loki would talk about it, he would explain everything, but if the Avengers knew how broken he really was inside, who's to say they'd feel safe having him around them? And, sad as it was, Loki was pretty sure that if Thor had to choose between Loki and the Avengers, he'd choose the team every time. It didn't make him angry, really, because it was the right choice. His healthy,  _good_ team of superheroes and friends, or his screwed-up, depressed, asexual used-to-be-evil boyfriend? Loki wasn't sure he wouldn't make the same choice if given the chance.  

 He's worried. Every time he wakes up from visions of dark figures chasing him through a sea of shadows and has to retreat to balcony, he can feel the choice being made. He's not sure he can live with the final decision. 

He's not sure he can live without Thor. 

But he's not going to destroy Thor's façade of peace and happiness by speaking of this out loud, so he keeps quiet. 

(0) 

He has a nightmare. It's not even the worst of them, really; he's standing before the jury of the Chitauri, about to face his trial. He knows how this particular scene ends, because it's not just a dream. It's a memory. 

His head lolls, his knees quivering. He's weak; weak enough for capture but apparently still strong enough to power their massive serpentine war machines.  

The verdict is reached; he is to be used. They're not worried about repercussions from Asgard, because he's just been cast off the Bifrost and that tends to only happen to war criminals, and he's restrained enough that their not worried about what  _he_ thinks of the matter. 

In this dream, however, something's different. It's the first time he's had this particular one since he and Thor had gotten together and it strikes him suddenly, that this is his life if Thor ever casts him away: used by his enemies, abandoned by those he used to call friends. He begins to cry, slight heaving sobs that rattle through his shoulders and end in his chest, where there's a dull pressure, like a hand gripping his heart. 

The nearest guard growls at him and levels his spear at Loki's chest. "Be silent," the creature hisses, and then its voice changes fractionally into something closer to Loki's memory. "I don't want to have to do this, Loki." 

Loki screams then, surging forward as best he can with his bones liquefied and his muscles turned to lead. He is nearly within striking range when a gasp of breath leaves his mouth. He is halted, and when he glances down, he sees it's because the end of the spear has pierced his shoulder, bounced off a bone, and is most likely disturbing the skin of his back with the tip. He gurgles, unable to move, but he hisses just a little as he snarls, "I would die before serving you again,  _lizard_ ," and falls to his knees. 

"Loki," a different Chitauri approaches, drops to its knees in front of Loki and grasps his chin with both palms, "Loki!" 

He refuses to allow himself to be swayed. Thor is not coming for him this time, and this dream has lost the luster of true dreams. It is no longer merely inside his head. He goes limp, lets his eyes lose focus as the second creature shakes him and calls his name. 

The Chitauri have returned, and there is no one here to save him save himself. And seeing how well that worked out the first time, Loki is inclined to try a different option this time: retreat. 

He retreats within himself, creating a space inside his mind to settle and leaves his body in the hands of the monsters, though he is loathe to do so. There is always a chance that whatever they choose to do to his magic will leave him incapable of returning, but without Thor he has no need for continued survival, anyway. 

It's all just a waste of time now.


	2. Realizing it's not what you thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki wakes up from the magical coma he put himself in and realizes something isn't right about the conditions. This allows him to begin searching for the culprit and readying himself for another meeting with the Chitauri-who-might-not-have-been-Chitauri.

The creatures lock his body in one of their cells of iron and bone, and he doesn’t understand why they don’t just flop him down on the earth and dirt the way they did last time. The second Chitauri is gentle with his body, setting it on something suspiciously soft and petting the hair off his face with a shivering hand. He tries to turn his head away, to spit in the thing’s eyes, but the magical coma he’s locked himself in refuses to let go. It worries him; the only times it’s done this is when there was an outside threat so large it would destroy him otherwise. Last time, it had been himself, his actions, what would have destroyed him.

          However, slowly, he can feel himself return to control of his facilities. His fingers twitch, his eyelashes flutter, and his breath escapes his mouth in a gust. He sat up, letting the blankets tucking him into the bed slip off. Something was nagging at him, and he determined to escape the cell the beasts had held him in for so long. They had to be away; his magic wouldn’t have woken him otherwise. He strode to the walls, a fist coming up with lightning arcing between his slender fingers.

          “Sir, Loki has awoken. He appears to be confused and is attacking the walls of his rooms.” The disembodied voice greatly resembles JARVIS, but Loki won’t be fooled by that. He’d had a taste of the Chitauri’s tricks before and now was the not the time to be amazed at the likeness.

          But… would the Chitauri have known of JARVIS? They hadn’t gotten into the house during the invasion, and Stark had told the AI not to speak to those it identified as intruders, so as to keep the security system a secret until they needed to use it. So how would the Chitauri know how to replicate the AI’s voice?

          They wouldn’t.

          Which meant that something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

          He sent his magic spiraling out from his body, feeling for the twinge of another’s magic in the Tower’s space. Settling into his standard meditation pose, he closed his eyes and sifted through the small flashes of power he was finding littered throughout the Tower. Actually, once he was looking for it, he noticed they were only in the hallways and rooms he’d been in since he woke to the second ‘Chitauri’ invasion… he’d woken from a nightmare of the Chitauri to see the Chitauri standing around his bedside. And he hadn’t had a nightmare for weeks before that thanks to Thor, which could be connected.

          He determined that he knew enough of the magic to recognize it next time he saw it, or next time it tried to act on someone around him. It was warping his senses, distorting them, and that was potentially dangerous.

          His astral form curled out from his body; he was tall there as well, with black hair to the small of his back and eyes that glowed icy blue. Claws tipped his fingers, and firefly antennae grew out of his forehead, reminiscent of the antlers on his helmet.

          The strands of glittering yellow magic slipping through the Tower centered on him, wallowing around his head and eyes, and bouncing a staccato rhythm over his injured chest in his astral body. Snarling, he slashed through the misty strings, but after a while he’d only managed to dissuade them from hovering near his chest. He’d be able to properly see the wound now, he figured, and that would have to be enough for now.

          He pulled out of the meditation pose stiffly and stretched, grunting when his chest panged. He paused, curious, and began to study it.

          It was obviously not made by a spear, now that the foreign magic wasn’t clouding his perception of it. It appeared to be some sort of bullet wound, though perhaps not made by the normal kind. He supposed that, living with the inventor and engineer Stark and the green giant Banner, he should be grateful he wasn’t injured greater during his episode. The wound had iced over and was healing properly, so he didn’t worry about it too much.

          Glancing up at the room, he found the bars had melted into normal walls. The cage he’d imagined had disappeared back into his imagination, for which he was glad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's short. Took me a while to finish it. But at least now I know how many chapters there will be in the story! Now I just have to get around to writing them... ^^;


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the chapters are so short and sucky in this fic. I really just want to finish it to start on a headcanon of Loki I had recently enter my brain but I'm hating my record of leaving fics undone just to start a new one, and I feel like this is my best and only good series (plus I love Loki, even if I write him badly... ^^;) so I wanna keep the stories finished or on their way to being finished, you know? I'm terribly flighty...  
> Anyway, enough rambling. One chapter after this that finishes the whole thing, and then you guys can send in ideas or headcanons of Loki you want to see. One-shot or two-shot ideas for that, please. :)  
> Also, I've learned I suck at naming chapters, so I gave up. Cheers.

The room had been empty, with the exception of JARVIS’s rapier wit while Loki had been meditating, and for that he could only be grateful. Waking to the Chitauri’s faces, even if they weren’t really Chitauri, would probably have made him panic enough for his magic to defend him on his own. As it was, waking to JARVIS had been a bit of a shock.

          The door to Loki’s new room wasn’t locked when he inspected it, but that could have meant a lot of things. They could be waiting for him to leave so they could ambush; they could have traps set up to catch him; they might not think he would wake up or want to leave once he had; they might have just been being considerate. But no matter what the situation, Loki was prepared to skim into his astral form and see if his vision was being affected by the strange golden magic.

          Upon exiting his room, he had JARVIS direct him through the halls to where the group was gathered. Sitting calmly in the leather chairs were seven of the creatures he despised. Taking a deep breath, he glanced at them through his astral’s eyes, taking note of how they all were simply big masses of flowing yellow strings and how some of them still had small factors contributing to deciphering who they were, like the yellow scales around the top of the skull of one, and the glowing chest of another, though with the yellow magic trying to conceal what really sat underneath he couldn’t find the source of the light. He was pretty sure that one was Stark, and the blonde one was either Thor or the captain.

          “So,” he began, “what do we do now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any ideas after this crappy mess?  
> Anybody want me to jot down the playlist I'm using for Loki in this 'verse? Personally I feel they all fit pretty well, I just don't write him very well...


End file.
